


Rather Untranslatable

by Philipa_Moss



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-20
Updated: 2011-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-24 19:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philipa_Moss/pseuds/Philipa_Moss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One word: Mamihlapinatapai.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rather Untranslatable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amélie_Mochitalia](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Am%C3%A9lie_Mochitalia).



John returns from the surgery to find a bedraggled hipster in his sitting room.

“Hello,” he says tentatively, dropping his keys in the dish with one hand and inching his other hand into his pocket in case a covert call to the police proves necessary. “Can I help you? Are you here to see Sherlock?”

“John, you blithering idiot,” says the hipster and, well, there’s that mystery solved. Yet the larger mystery of why Sherlock should be sitting in hipster garb on their sofa, fuming with his arms crossed, persists.

“You’re on a case,” says John, attempting an explanation. “You must be. Camden, is it? Should I get my revolver? Is there time for tea first?”

“No,” spits out Sherlock, crossing his arms in front of his chest and flinging his head to rest on the back of the sofa.

“No?” John replies, his hand hovering wistfully over the electric kettle. “It’ll only take a moment.”

“Have all the tea you want,” says Sherlock. “It’s not for a case.” He growls and mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “impressive tartly.”

“ _What_?” John asks, because at the bare minimum Sherlock usually makes grammatical sense.

“I am dressed this way for a party,” Sherlock enunciates. “Mycroft has insisted—has called in every favor I owe him simultaneously, as it happens—and so I must attend. But he will _not_ ,” and here Sherlock flourishes one ramrod-straight finger, “have the satisfaction of a well-groomed guest enjoying himself. It is a costume party and I’m bloody well coming in costume.”

“A costume party?” John gapes at Sherlock. Mycroft hadn’t struck him as the type.

“It’s Halloween, or had you forgotten the date?” Sherlock proclaims. “Besides, it was his wife’s idea. Impressing visiting dignitaries with lavish local customs or some such rot.”

“And he still invited you?” John asks, incredulous, and then: “Mycroft has a _wife_?”

“Of course Mycroft has a wife,” says Sherlock. “Her Majesty’s Government must reflect the values of Her Majesty’s people. He keeps her on retainer.”

John very nearly drops the mug he has been lifting down from the shelf.

“Or he once did,” says Sherlock, shrugging. “Now he claims to love her. One wonders. How does she feel about the cessation of her cash flow? Does she love him in return, or does she stick around in hopes that it might resume?”

“Good questions,” John allows.

“Good questions, yes, but questions I have neither the time nor the inclination to solve.” Sherlock rolls sideways so that he is stretched out on the couch with his legs hanging over the arm. He closes his eyes. “Call me when the car arrives.”

“Better you than me,” John says, getting up and moving into the kitchen. “I’ll just stay here, then, and hand out the sweets.”

Sherlock’s reply, when it comes, is predictable, but no less surprising for it. “You could come with me.”

“I’m sorry?” John pokes his head back into the living room.

Sherlock opens one eye. “Well. I get a plus one, anyway, and Mycroft would appreciate it, not that I care what Mycroft thinks,” he amends hastily.

“You do realize that, if I come with you to this soirée, you will be pulling me away from some truly impressive crap telly.”

“Yes,” says Sherlock.

“And you do realize that everyone will think I’m your date.”

“You should know by now, John, that nothing we can do or say would ever disabuse them of that assumption.”

“Well then,” says John, clapping his hands together and coming up dry. Why not, after all? “I’d love to. But not if you’re going dressed like that.”

 

*****

 

Sherlock, as it turns out, has an impressive array of disguises crammed into two wardrobes, which are in turn crammed into his shoebox of a room.

“I think it’s actually gotten smaller since the last time I was in here,” says John, perching on the edge of Sherlock’s (unmade) bed as Sherlock roots around in wardrobe number two. “Is it actually possible that you gave me the better room?”

“The larger room, yes, but the better?” Sherlock’s voice emerges, muffled, from the recesses of the wardrobe. “It faces the street—very dangerous, very loud—and to reach it you must climb yet another staircase—not practical, or convenient when one is conducting an experiment in the kitchen.” He emerges. “And I come and go at all hours. I didn’t want to wake you by tromping about.”

“You weren’t worried that I might wake you?” John grins.

“Oh, I was sure of it,” Sherlock throws over his shoulder as he stoops to open a box at his feet. “With the regularity and volubility of your nightmares and attendant insomnia you were bound to wake me no matter which room you took.”

It takes John a few seconds to remember to reply. He inhales shakily and then curses himself for his shakiness. “How long have you, um, been aware?”

“How long?” Sherlock tosses a puffy cravat over his shoulder. “I suspected the moment I met you. You struck me immediately as someone whose repressed emotions would manifest themselves in dream.”

“Repressed what?”

“There were also the circles under your eyes. Once you moved in of course it was no great effort to track your nighttime movements. I sleep very little myself, as you know. Ah ha!”

“What is it?”

Sherlock straightens, triumphant. In his hand he is holding a sword.

 

*****

 

Mycroft opens the door himself, nearly unrecognizable as Charles Dickens. “Hamlet, I presume?” he says. “How apt.”

Sherlock is dressed as a seventeenth century nobleman all in black with a sword and scabbard hanging from his waist. He rolls his eyes and pushes past Mycroft into the hall.

“John,” says Mycroft, and if he is surprised to see him there he does not show it. “A warrior from another era.”

“Mycroft,” says John, nodding at him and slipping inside.

“John has been asking about Mrs. Mycroft,” says Sherlock. “Who is she dressed up as this evening?”

“It would be nice,” says Mycroft, closing the door behind them, “if you could be bothered to remember your own sister-in-law’s name.”

“I never see her,” says Sherlock. “It takes up too much space.”

“Delia is in the next room,” says Mycroft. “Dressed as a nun.”

“And the bar?” says Sherlock.

“Through there,” says Mycroft. “Sherlock…” and John would have to be deaf or stupid to miss the current of significance running through his words.

“For John,” says Sherlock. “Heavens knows I’ll need my wits about me tonight. Why exactly have you insisted upon my presence, or is it to remain a mystery?”

“No mystery, Sherlock. Merely an invitation,” says Mycroft. “I must see to the Ambassador and his wife. Please, enjoy yourselves.”

Sherlock rebuffs John’s suggestion that he leave his sword in the umbrella stand and strides into the room Mycoft indicated. John follows and eventually catches up to Sherlock by the window, where he has wedged himself sword-first into the window seat, apparently forcing a Pierrot and Columbine to vacant the premises, if the dirty glances the couple are now shooting him from across the room are anything to go by.

“Get you something?” John asks, nodding towards the bar.

“Water,” says Sherlock. “I must remain hydrated.”

At the bar, John falls into line behind a credible and curvaceous Mata Hari. He is about to compliment her on pulling off the look when he remembers how many actual spies must be in the room and changes his mind. In the midst of this contemplation of espionage, a tap on his shoulder almost causes him to jump in the air.

“I’m sorry if I startled you,” says the pretty woman behind him, who can only be Delia the Nun, wife of Mycroft, “but are you John Watson?”

“How could you tell?” he asks, forcing a grin and extending his hand.

Delia’s handshake is firm and her eyes level. She strikes John as a blonde, not that he can prove it with all of her hair tucked under that habit. “The dress uniform somewhat gave it away. I don’t imagine you were given much notice and cobbling together a costume at the last minute can be a trial.”

“Yes,” says John. “Thank you for extending the invitation. You have a beautiful home.”

“Well we’ve been dying to get you over here but there hasn’t been the time,” says Delia. “I even went so far as speaking with Bridget behind Mycroft’s back but it came to nothing.”

“Bridget?”

“Mycroft’s assistant.” Delia winked, and tapped her nose. “You probably know her as Anthea.”

Mata Hari claimed her drinks and the barman called across to John, “And for you, sir?”

“Whiskey and soda and a glass of water, please.”

“Good for him,” says Delia, as the barman turns to complete John’s order.

“What do you mean?” says John.

“I mean you’re obviously a good influence on Sherlock. The amount of time Mycroft spent worrying about him before your arrival does not bear thinking about. It obviously helps to be living with someone who will hold him accountable for his health.”

“Is there,” John hesitated, unsure of how to proceed. “We had the police in, once, on a drugs bust and they didn’t find anything of course but he seemed a little—”

“Yes,” says Delia, “well, he would, wouldn’t he, with his history.”

“I had wondered.”

Delia squeezes his shoulder. “Not to worry. He has you, now.”

Her tone is unmistakable. “We’re not—”

“Your drinks, sir,” says the barman.

“Oh, look! Lord and Lady Arbuthnot. I must dash,” says Delia. “Look, do tell Sherlock how glad we are to have him here. Or just me, if you think that would be better.” She throws up her hands, mock-frustrated. “Men!” And she is gone.

Back at the window seat, Sherlock accepts his water without comment and John sits down next to him, forcing the scabbard out of the way after a while to get more comfortable. A full five minutes passes in silence as they observe the people and the costumes around them.

“I see you met Delia,” says Sherlock, eventually and suddenly.

“So you _do_ know her name,” says John.

“Of course I do,” says Sherlock. “I was in attendance at their wedding.”

“She seemed nice,” says John. “Not as posh as I thought she would be. Or, not as obvious about it.”

“No,” says Sherlock. “Mycroft would never pick a stupid woman, even if it did start out as a monetary relationship.” He sloshes his water around the bottom of his glass and leans back in the window seat, resting his shoulders against the pane. “She told you something.”

“No,” says John, too quickly.

Sherlock shoots him a sympathetic glance. “It’s just as well that you know. I once had a cocaine habit.”

“I thought you might have,” says John, and doesn’t explain that he knows because he’s a doctor and because he’s not stupid and because he knows the signs of an addict, recovering or otherwise, intimately Sherlock already knows all that.

“I tried to rid myself of it several times.”

“It’s difficult,” says John. His eyes fall on ruby-encrusted devil across the room. “We all have our demons.”

Sherlock follows his gaze. “Yes, but only very few of them frequent Christie’s, and only on very special occasions.” He smiled, and frowned just as suddenly. “Eventually Mycroft issued an ultimatum and I entered a facility MI6 favors. It didn’t take very long. I had loosened the bottle, so to speak.” Sherlock runs one finger around the top of the glass. “He still,” he says, his voice dripping with distaste, “worries.”

“He wouldn’t be much of a brother if he didn’t,” says John, and regrets it immediately.

Sherlock’s face has hardened. “You would do wrong, John, to identify with Mycroft. I will allow that your experience with your sister and Mycroft’s experience with me do share a certain rough outline, but that is all. I know it is against your nature, but please restrain yourself from oversimplification in my presence.”

John stiffens, but he says nothing and instead sips his drink.

Sherlock is up in a shot. “Let’s go outside.”

“But I just got comfortable.”

Sherlock starts making for the French doors and so of course John follows. This is what it’s come to, he thinks. I’ll follow him, and he knows I’ll follow him.

In Mycroft’s garden, revelers have gathered around small braziers. It has been unseasonably warm, but tonight there is a definite nip in the air. John tugs at the sleeves of his uniform. The thing never used to feel so wrong.

“Muscle mass,” says Sherlock from the darkness beneath a tree. He is sitting on a bench where there is just room enough for John. The entire left-hand part of the seat has been taken up by a toothy, glowing jack-o-lantern. “You’ve lost it since you left Afghanistan. Not a significant amount, but enough. Your uniform hangs looser in the chest and arms and shoulders, tighter in the waist.”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” says John, taking a seat.

“I certainly didn’t mean to imply that, well, that you are looking anything less than dashing this evening. Several guests followed your progress across the floor.”

“How do you know?” John asks, grateful the darkness covers his blushing. “You were walking in front of me.”

Sherlock makes a cat-like sound of dismissal. “There were a significant number who stared past me at an angle designed to take you in. I extrapolated the rest.”

“Must be the shiny buttons.”

“No,” says Sherlock firmly. “It’s you.” And then he doesn’t say anything for a long time.

“Look,” says John, a little bit later, the sudden warmth in his stomach curling around a harder dread. “I know you probably want me to drop it and after this I will, but recovery is a process. It takes time. I know you’re not one to seek help but—”

“John—”

“No, I just wanted to—it’s just that if what Delia told me is true and I’ve been good for you, if having me around has made things easier then I’m, well, I’m glad. And I’m flattered, honestly.”

“It’s never been about you,” Sherlock snaps.

“I know,” John insists. “I know. But I’m still flattered.”

Smoke from a nearby brazier drifts their way and with it a hint of warmth. The candle in the pumpkin flickers, but does not go out. Inside, there is a sudden burst of raucous laughter. Sherlock runs one hand through his hair very quickly, and then drops it into his lap.

“It could have been your progress they were following. Across the floor. Before,” says John. “You’re very dashing too, you know.”

“Only 20%,” says Sherlock. “Conditional probability. This crowd is more likely to find a uniform attractive.”

“Of course,” says John. “Maths.”

 

*****

 

There is dinner, apparently, a sit-down dinner with a vague nod to the table of precedence and umpteen pieces of silverware and many other things John doesn’t understand and which feel deeply wrong to be faced with while wearing this uniform. Most significantly, he is seated away from Sherlock, who is down the table and across from him and who looks, in John’s opinion, one course away from snapping. He has been cutting his chicken with almost homicidal vigor for five minutes now.

John turns away from his contemplation of Sherlock’s mental state and shakes his head apologetically. “I am so sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“I _said_ ,” said his neighbor, a pretty young redheaded woman who is tastefully dressed as a valkyrie, “isn’t it terrible what the PM said yesterday? I was of half a mind to write to _The Times_ , only Lady Carlisle got there before me.”

“Who?” asks John. “What did he say?”

The woman stares at his as if he is the most dull-witted man on the planet.

“I thought you might have formed your own opinion on it,” says the woman.

“On what?” says John. “I have no idea what we’re talking about.”

She blinks slowly. “Then, pardon my asking, but what are you doing here? If you’re not political, I mean. I didn’t think the Holmeses knew anyone who wasn’t…connected.”

“I’m here with a friend,” said John, and breathed in slowly, breathed out slowly.

“He’s here with me,” Sherlock is suddenly calling across the table at full volume and now he is standing up and oh god throwing down his napkin and pushing back his chair. “He’s here with me and that’s not a costume so mind how you talk to him, you foolish cow.”

The entire table goes quiet. “You may be excused, Sherlock, if you do not wish to reclaim your seat,” says Mycroft, in tones to freeze a desert. Although he never met the man and never will, John is convinced that he has just been granted a glimpse of Holmes Sr.

“There is no one in the sitting room,” Delia hastily and with considerably more warmth from the other end of the table. “You would not be bothered there.”

Sherlock seems fixed in place, fork in hand like a weapon, staring down John’s now-quaking neighbor, so John gets to his feet and, with what he hopes is a sympathetic smile at the valkyrie, makes his way out of the dining room. John can tell by the way conversation uneasily resumes after a few seconds that Sherlock has followed him.

In the sitting room, which John finds without Sherlock’s help, Sherlock does not fling himself onto the nearest couch as John anticipated. Rather, he begins pacing the room, one hand gripping—unconsciously, John hoped—his sword hilt. “I did not bring you here to be belittled,” he says, low in his throat.

“I wasn’t,” says John. “Or, maybe I was, but it wasn’t that bad. What are you going to do, challenge her to a duel?”

“Any belittlement is inexcusable.”

“So only you’re allowed to do that to me?” John aims for jocular, but apparently he has fallen somewhat short of the mark if Sherlock’s face is any indication. He looks stricken, and, in his costume, a bit like Hamlet indeed.

“It’s all right,” says John hastily. “I know when you do it it’s for my betterment or whatever.”

Sherlock stops pacing, seizes John’s hand, and pulls him down onto the couch. “John,” he says, fixing John with a disturbingly intense gaze. “If I ever hurt you, you would tell me?”

It sounds like a question, so John shrugs and says yes.

Sherlock lets go of John’s hand and shakes his head violently. “No. You have to promise.”

“All right, but,” John trails off somewhat. This entire conversation is beginning to remind him of one he had with a particularly unorthodox army nurse named Camilla, whom he had dated for two months in 2008. “I mean, do I need a safeword?” John asks finally.

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Sherlock, you must know what a safeword is.”

“Yes, I know what a safeword is, but I fail to understand how it applies.”

“You say awful things to me all the time. I should have some word, some completely bizarre word, to say when it gets to be too much.” John should really know by now to stop talking. The look on Sherlock’s face is back. “Not that I would have used it by now, anyway, really, um.”

“John, I hadn’t realized—”

“Forget it.”

“No. I was unaware that safewords extended beyond the realm of the sexual, but if you are right and if what you say is true then we need one, without a doubt.”

“And possibly Lestrade as well,” John almost giggles.

“Let’s not get carried away.”

Eventually they settle on mamihlapinatapai. John has Sherlock write it down twice—once phonetically—and records him pronouncing it on his phone. It means, apparently, “a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will offer something that they both desire but are unwilling to do,” in some language of Tierra del Fuego.

Sherlock is the one who comes up with it. “For one thing, it’s untranslatable, succinctly anyway. So it’s distinct. Second, the very act of saying it would take enough time to disrupt any conversation. Most useful.”

“And then there’s the meaning,” says John. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yes, I suppose it is. John,” Sherlock furrows his brow. “Moderation has always been…difficult for me. I have never found this happy medium pop psychologists are so fond of discussing.”

“Ella has mentioned it once or twice and she’s hardly pop.”

“She’s an idiot.”

“No, she’s not. Not altogether.”

Sherlock waves a hand in front of his own face, as if to realign his thoughts. “I grab hold. I don’t want to let go. To thoughts. To cases. To cocaine. To certain people.” He glances quickly up, then down again at his lap and rattles on. “Other things I can’t stand. Even a little bit becomes too much to bear. Food on the move. Small talk. Echoing thoughts. Sleeping when there’s work to be done. A badly played violin. Not knowing what to do or how to do it. Not being able to predict what a person will do. Not knowing what is going through a person’s mind. Not knowing.”

John isn’t quite sure when in the last few moments rain has started lashing the sitting room window. Gusts of wind blow great handfuls of water against the glass. The fire flickers in the fireplace. Even the atmosphere seems to be conspiring with Sherlock in the turn this conversation has taken.

“There are things I can’t take,” offers John.

Sherlock snorts derisively, but then brings himself up short and nods in awkward encouragement.

“Loud noises out of nowhere. High stress situations.”

“That’s a patent lie,” says Sherlock smugly. “You live off of high stress situations.”

“Of a certain kind,” says John. “Let me be clear. The bad stress is the stress I can’t control. And, well, like you it’s the thoughts I can’t control that are the worst. Those are the ones that keep me up at night, whether I like it or not. If I hadn’t met you, I don’t like to think…”

John has barely registered the cessation of his own voice before Sherlock has brought his hand to the side of John’s face and cupped it. They stay like that for a moment, barely breathing, before Sherlock says, “It occurs to me that a deal might be struck.” He lowers his hand.

“What kind,” John’s voice sounds gravelly, unused. He clears it. “What kind of deal?”

“I’ll look after you, if you look after me.” Sherlock’s eyes are impossibly grey and clear and John wonders why he hasn’t thought to look at them this way before.

“You’ll belittle me and I’ll tell you off?” John asks around the lump in his throat.

“And mamihlapinatapai’s the watchword. Do we shake on it?”

“We shake on it,” says John, and he wonders what comes next.

“Caramel-dipped apples,” says Sherlock. “In the next room. Are you coming?”

“Yes,” says John. “I’m coming,” and follows Sherlock out.

 

*****

 

Mycroft sees them out at the end of the evening with an insufferable grin. The Tube has stopped running for the night and so Sherlock hails a taxi. In the back seat of the taxi, John takes Sherlock’s hand as if it is the most natural thing in the world. Sherlock gives John’s fingers a tight little squeeze. John looks at Sherlock. Sherlock looks at John. Sherlock looks away. John laughs. “Mamihlapinatapai,” he says.

Sherlock’s eyes widen. “I didn’t say anything!”

“No,” John says. “This,” John says, and gestures between them. “Exactly.”

Sherlock begins to understand, but before he can say anything John kisses him.

“Do keep up,” says John, and grins.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a birthday gift for the lovely and talented AM.  
> [This](http://s11.allstarpics.net/images/orig/0/h/0htshdx78dfzthhf.jpg) is Sherlock's Halloween costume.  
> (Hot bod courtesy of M. Gaspard Ulliel. Poster courtesy of The Princess of Montpensier. Cyrillic alphabet courtesy of the Russians.)


End file.
